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WASHINGTON — When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, several Texas Democrats will be absent.

Netanyahu will address Congress at the invitation of Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio. Democrats claimed that the invitation was a breach of etiquette, since inviting heads of state to Washington typically falls to the president.

The speech will primarily focus on the ongoing nuclear talks with Iran. Netanyahu has decried the emerging deal, which he said would endanger Israel.

Rep. Beto O’Rourke of El Paso wrote in an column for the El Paso Times this week that the timing of the speech threatens the talks with Iran.

“By politicizing the U.S.-Israel relationship with an address which will be seen as a refutation of our foreign policy and our president … Prime Minister Netanyahu and Speaker Boehner are playing a destructive and reckless game with the U.S.- Israel relationship and will potentially upset the delicate state of our negotiations with Iran,” O’Rourke wrote.

Eight Democrats in the Senate and 49 in the House won’t attend Netanyahu’s address, according to The Hill. Here’s the full list of Texas Democrats skipping Netanyahu’s speech as of this morning:

Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, Dallas

Rep. Lloyd Doggett, Austin

Rep. Rubén Hinojosa, Mercedes

Rep. Beto O’Rourke, El Paso

Rep. Joaquin Castro, San Antonio

Johnson issued a statement saying “I believe our country’s relationship with Israel is too important to be used as a pawn in a game of politics.”

She said that meeting with Netanyahu now, who is up for re-election in two weeks, would be meddling in a foreign election — a stance that President Barack Obama has also adopted.

“Once the deadline for diplomatic negotiations with Iran and the Israeli election has passed, my colleagues and I would be honored to welcome the Israeli Prime Minister to address a joint session of Congress,” Johnson said.

Pope Francis gives his speech in the Synod hall on the occasion of the closing ceremony of the IV Scholas Occurrentes World Educational Congress, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2015, at the Vatican. House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio said Thursday, that Pope Francis will address Congress Sept. 24, becoming the first pontiff to do so.

Pope Francis will become the first pontiff to address a joint meeting of the House and Senate on Sept. 24, House Speaker John Boehner said in a statement Thursday.

“In a time of global upheaval, the Holy Father’s message of compassion and human dignity has moved people of all faiths and backgrounds,” Boehner said. “His teachings, prayers, and very example bring us back to the blessings of simple things and our obligations to one another. We look forward to warmly welcoming Pope Francis to our Capitol and hearing his address on behalf of the American people.”

The pope’s visit to the Capitol will be part of a scheduled trip to the United States with a stop in Philadelphia for the World Conference on Families and a stop in New York to visit the United Nations

Catholics in the Texas congressional delegation say they’re looking forward to the visit.

“Pope Francis has led the Catholic Church with grace and inspired people from all religions with his words and the humble example he sets for all,” Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, said in a statement. “He challenges me and all Catholics to better serve our Church, communities and nation, and especially now as we see images of uncertainty and evil around the world, I look forward to His Holiness’ prayers and words of wisdom.”

Rep. Rubén Hinojosa, D-Mercedes, who attended Francis’ inauguration in Rome, said in a statement that he knows the pope’s message will be inspiring.

“His message is always of compassion, love and peace for all of mankind,” Hinojosa said. “I was honored to attend His Holiness Pope Francis’ inauguration in Rome and was inspired by his profound message then, as I know I will be again when he visits the United States of America.”

Cuellar and Hinojosa are two of eight Catholic members of the Texas delegation. Reps. Kevin Brady, Michael McCaul, Beto O’Rourke, Joaquín Castro, John Ratcliffe and Filemon Vela are also included.

WASHINGTON — Democratic Rep. Rubén Hinojosa and Republican Will Hurd will head into Congress next year as the most vulnerable lawmakers in the Texas delegation.

It’s common for lawmakers in the 23rd District, which Hurd will represent, to be top targets for the opposing party. Elections for the West Texas seat are known to be competitive, and Hurd’s win marked the fifth time the district elected a new congressmen in 10 years.

AP Photo/HO, File

Rep. Ruben Hinojosa, D-Mercedes

Hurd campaign

Will Hurd, former CIA operative

In his Democratic-leaning district, Hinojosa won with 54 percent of the vote. In Congress, he’s in his ninth term and chairs the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

Hinojosa, a Mercedes Democrat, faced Republican opponent Eddie Zamora, who received 43 percent of the vote. The candidates ran in the 15th District, located in the Lower Rio Grande Valley.

Zamora raised about $107,000, while Hinojosa raised about $438,000, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

Hinojosa’s vote margin is his lowest in recent years. The Democrat won 61 percent of the vote in 2012 and 56 percent in 2010.

Zamora also took on Hinojosa in 2010 and 2008.

Hurd, a former CIA operative who knocked off Democratic incumbent Rep. Pete Gallego, won just under 50 percent of the vote to Gallego’s 47.7 percent.

Gallego raised about $2.3 million to Hurd’s $1.1 million for the seat, which runs from San Antonio to El Paso. The congressional district is famously volatile and is by far the most competitive in Texas.

Former San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, who was sworn in Monday as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, greeted President Obama on his arrival July 17, 2012, in San Antonio.

WASHINGTON — Julián Castro has been Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for less than a day — and he’s already being celebrated as the newest Latino addition to the president’s Cabinet.

Hours after the former San Antonio mayor assumed his post Monday, he was feted at a Capitol Hill event for his achievements as a Latino American.

“The Hispanic community has made tremendous strides over the last several decades,” Castro told The Dallas Morning News. “And I applaud President Obama for the strong support he has shown.”

Castro was honored with three other top officials: Labor Secretary Thomas Perez; Maria Contreras-Sweet, head of the Small Business Administration; and Katherine Archuleta, director of the Office of Personnel Management. The gathering was hosted by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute.

The group represents the first time four Latino Cabinet members or Cabinet-rank officials have served in a president’s Cabinet.

Mercedes Democrat Rubén Hinojosa told The News that the bloc signifies the strides the Hispanic community has made.

“They are seeing the potential of the Latino and Latina community here in the United States,” Hinojosa said.

Castro, 39, rose to national prominence after delivering the keynote speech at the 2012 Democratic National Convention. He served three terms as mayor, and said that experience showed him how HUD and other federal agencies work at the ground level.

“HUD has a fantastic role to play in helping to revitalize America’s cities and towns,” Castro said. “At the end of the day, what counts is whether an initiative is actually effective in the long run.”

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi vowed Thursday to protect the legal rights of minors crossing the southern border, saying that she looks forward to seeing the cost of the Republican border plan released a day earlier.

“I haven’t seen what they have said they think they can pass,” Pelosi said before a meeting with Texas Democrats and Rio Grande officials.

The GOP plan includes updating a 2008 law to expedite deportations of minors from Central America, a controversial proposal that has deeply divided Republicans and Democrats.

The Obama administration has signaled it is open to tweaking some parts of the 2008 law, but Democrats have said the legislation should not be changed.

Before the meeting, Martinez told reporters the children fleeing their home countries must be afforded a “fair and judicial process.” Pelosi visited a Border Patrol facility in Brownsville last month.

Since October, more than 57,000 minors have illegally entered the U.S., mainly from Guatemala, Honduras or El Salvador.

The Republican group, led by Rep. Kay Granger of Fort Worth, also recommended deploying the National Guard to the border, adding immigration judges and bolstering border security in the Central American countries and Mexico.

The plan differs from legislation sought by Senate Democrats, who call for about $2.7 billion to combat the crisis.

Republicans have rejected that proposal, saying it does not include changes to immigration law that would resolve the issue.

Congress is running out of time to approve a plan before lawmakers leave Washington for their August recess, scheduled to begin Aug. 1.

Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., speaks to reporters after President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden met with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus regarding immigration reform at the White House on Wednesday.

update 8:40pm

The president shook hands with his top antagonist among Hispanic Democrats in Congress, Rep. Henry Cuellar of Laredo. But there was no showdown.

“It didn’t happen,” Rep. Luis Gutiérrez, D-Ill., recounted after the meeting, per Politico. ““They never spoke to one another.”

Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus — other than Cuellar — did emphasize that they oppose changes to a 2008 law that is partly responsible for lengthy delays in deporting children from Central America who come to the United States illegally.

Cuellar has co-authored a bill with the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, fellow Texan John Cornyn, to speed deportations.

The overwhelming majority of the Hispanic caucus opposes that bill. Caucus members urged the president to use existing authority to speed the legal process for migrants. Changing the law, they argued, would undermine legal protections for vulnerable children.

“We made an impassioned plea that the children be protected and that we follow the law,” Gutiérrez told reporters after the meeting.

Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, told reporters the president offered assurances that he, too, wants to protect minors’ due process rights. He noted that the influx of young Central American migrants has overshadowed the debate about an immigration policy overhaul. Obama also emphasized that he remains committed to that.

“We can do justice to both situations,” Castro said after the meeting, AP reported. “It’s certainly juggling two balls at once, but we can do that.”

Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif., said Obama “didn’t indicate one way or another” whether he supports the Cornyn/Cuellar bill, The Hill reported. “He was very straight-forward about the fact that just because a child is in a poor situation, doesn’t mean the child should stay. There are lots of children around the world in that situation.”

original post

WASHINGTON — Hispanic congressmen arrived at the White House a little while ago for a rare closed-door session with President Barack Obama.

The president has asked Congress for $3.7 billion to care for child migrants and hire more judges and others to cope with a record backlog of immigration and asylum cases, and drastically speed deportations.

Republicans have resisted, calling the price tag too high and complaining that the president’s approach doesn’t go to the causes of the crisis, which has brought some 57,000 Central American children into Texas and other border states since October.

“The priority for this meeting is for the president to hear from congressional Democrats, some of their ideas about steps that the president can take using his executive authority to address the problems created by our broken immigration system,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.

He noted that Speaker John Boehner recently announced that House Republicans won’t consider a sweeping plan to overhaul immigration policy and beef up border security.

“The president not going to stand idly by while Congress does nothing,” Earnest said.

GOP Reps. Sam Johnson of Plano and Roger Williams of Austin said Wednesday that they’ll visit McAllen on Friday to get a handle on the situation, continuing a parade of GOP leaders making the trek – both to bolster their arguments, and implicitly to shame Obama for avoiding the border during his two-day Texas visit last week.

The crisis, Johnson said, “demands our undivided attention… That’s why unlike the president, I will head to the Rio Grande Valley on Friday.” With an area covering 19 Texas counties and more than 17,000 square miles, he said, “ there’s no way to fully grasp the scope and depth of the crisis through a simple briefing in Washington.”

Meanwhile, backlash mounted against a plan from Sen. John Cornyn, the deputy GOP leader, and Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, to speed deportation of young migrants from Central America.

Their bill – which they promote as a bipartisan solution — would change a 2008 law meant to protect children from human trafficking. That law allows swift return of children from Mexico and Canada who arrive without permission. But children from further away face a different process. They often can stay for several years as their amnesty claims are processed.

Immigrant advocates and many Democratic lawmakers have denounced the Cornyn/Cuellar plan, which they’ve dubbed the Humane Act.

Julieta Garibay, legislative affairs associate for United We Dream, a pro-immigrant group, called the bill “despicable” and inhumane.

“It continues to show just how heartless and out of touch some members of Congress are on the issue of refugee children and families,” she said.

Most of the 57,000 children nabbed at the border since October in the current surge come from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Many, Garibay noted, have fled violence. Instead of protecting them, as the 2008 law was intended, the Cornyn/Cuellar plan would be “stripped of their rights by hate-mongering politicians who see them as invaders and not as refugees.”

Tim Timmons holds a glass pipe filled with marijuana prior to smoking it at his Garland home October 26, 2010. Timmons, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, has offered to go before the Texas legislature to show lawmakers what a toke looks like and explain the benefits in order to convince them that medical marijuana should be legalized. (COURTNEY PERRY/Staff Photographer)

WASHINGTON– Kinky Friedman might not have won his election, but some Texans in Washington signaled their support for medicinal marijuana very early Friday morning.

“The federal government is a creation of, and subservient to, the states” Donny Ferguson, a Stockman advisor, said by email. ”The federal government should respect state laws on hemp, cannabis and marijuana. This is just one issue where the federal government has surpassed its constitutional limits.”

The contradiction between federal and state law currently means that while state police in those 22 states cannot arrest a licensed medical marijuana distributor if they are following state laws, the federal government can still theoretically arrest them for federal drug crimes. If this amendment is passed by the Senate and ultimately becomes law, that could change.

This measure would not exempt recreational marijuana use in Washington and Colorado, where voters made it legal under state law. If this became law, DEA officers would still be free to enforce federal drug laws in those states, provided they do not infringe on medical marijuana distributors who are following all state laws.

WASHINGTON – While Democrats promote an immigration bill as a bipartisan solution, Rep. Michael McCaul — whose border security plan is a part of that bill — said his fellow Republicans won't accept it.

“Our side won’t support the comprehensive bill,” said McCaul, R-Austin, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee in a separate interview Tuesday night. “We want to take this methodically.”

At the Capitol today, Democrats emphasized their bill's bipartisan roots and claimed it was the only way forward. The bill combines a plan approved earlier this year by the Senate with McCaul's approach to border security. But of 184 co-sponsors, none are Republican.

“We in the House must do something that is comprehensive just like the Senate did,” said Rep. Rubén Hinojosa, D-Mercedes, chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

Several bills relating to immigration reform have passed House committees with GOP support. Republicans are waiting for others before bringing the bills to the House floor for a vote, McCaul said. Wednesday morning, Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said he hopes for House action on immigration by the end of the year.

One key sticking point between Democrats and Republicans is how and whether to offer eventual citizenship to 11 million people in the country illegally.

“To say now at this process we’re going to start a piecemeal approach is false,” said Rep. Joe Garcia, D-Fla., an author of the Democratic plan. Immigration reform “is so complex that every time you move one little part, it affects another part.”

WASHINGTON – Hispanic lawmakers left a White House meeting today projecting optimism on an immigration overhaul — despite clear signs that House Republicans are adamant on the sticking point of citizenship for 11 million people in the country illegally.

“The president has said that he would not sign any law that does not have a pathway to American citizenship. And we believe that the president is very firm on that,” said Rep. Rubén Hinojosa, D-Mercedes, chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

House Republicans are meeting this afternoon for a two-hour closed-door strategy session on immigration.

Conservatives, including most Texas Republicans – the biggest GOP contingent from any state – remain unwavering. They view any path to citizenship as unacceptable “amnesty” for lawbreakers, and bad policy that will only encourage future waves of illegal immigration.

Hinojosa and others Hispanic lawmakers who met with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden today offered no hints on how they might overcome that resistance, other than to say that pressure from business and evangelical leaders might sway opponents.

Rep. Xavier Becerra of California, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus and the Hispanic group’s leader on immigration talks, said the president “left no doubt that finally fixing a broken immigration system is the top priority…. We know we have a champion in the White House.”

The Senate plan does offer a path to citizenship. To entice some Republicans to support it, backers agreed to a massive security buildup, doubling the Border Patrol by hiring 20,000 more agents, and adding 350 miles of fencing and other security measures at a cost of $46 billion over 10 years.

He sees an internal struggle for primacy among tea party Republicans and other hardliners, and those more sensitive to business interests.

“There has to be a concerted effort from others who really understand the importance of immigration reform – the business community, the chambers of commerce – who understand that for the nation’s economic health, comprehensive immigration reform is important,” Gallego said.

Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, called the meeting an “incredibly candid and productive conversation on accomplishing comprehensive immigration reform. Like us, the president believes that there are compelling moral and economic reasons to support comprehensive reform and like us, he realizes… it requires the work and cooperation of both parties.”

Hundreds of civil rights activists are gathered at the U.S. Supreme Court, which this morning hears an hour of oral argument on a case with potentially huge implications for minority voters in Texas and other states.

At issue is Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, a provision that requires permission – known as “pre-clearance” – from either the Justice Department or a federal court in Washington, D.C., before any changes in election rules can be put into effect, from moving a polling site to redrawing the boundaries used to elect school boards, city councils and state and federal lawmakers.

Congress expanded Section 5 oversight to Texas in 1975 in response to evidence of discrimination against Latinos. Even if the high court strikes down this pre-clearance authority, another provision of the law that applies nationwide – Section 2 – would still allow for court challenges after the fact.

Minority advocates argue that isn’t good enough.

“Laws only matter if laws are enforced,” the Rev. Jesse Jackson told a rally on the courthouse steps before heading through security to witness the arguments.

“The literacy tests may be gone but… we still need Section 5,” said Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat who has scars from the march on Selma, Ala.

The case argued Wednesday involved a challenge from Shelby County, Ala., a state the law has covered since 1965. The NAACP and the Obama administration’s solicitor general, Donald Verrilli, will be arguing to uphold the law.

Congress created pre-clearance nearly a half-century ago – and renewed it for 25 years by overwhelming margins in 2006 (98-0 in the Senate, 390-33 in the House, and signed by President George W. Bush) — in the belief that it would be impossible to stamp out discrimination by suing one state or county at a time.

In Texas, as elsewhere, they cite a long and ongoing record of discrimination as justification for federal oversight. Even decades after the elimination of poll taxes, literacy tests and all-white primaries, they argue, officials in Texas have engaged in race-based gerrymandering of legislative and congressional districts and used other tactics intended to suppress the minority vote.

The Justice Department has struck down Texas political maps for decades and last summer, two federal courts found patterns of discrimination, in the state’s voter ID law and in the latest round of redistricting.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Shelby County, arguing that the federal oversight intrudes too far into state sovereignty.

A number of U.S. House members are on hand for the arguments and rally, including Congressional Black Caucus members Reps. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Dallas, and Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston. Rep. Rubén Hinojosa, D-Mercedes, chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, is also at the court.

“The Voting Rights Act restored justice, equality, and fairness to our country’s most sacred right,” Hinojosa said. “We are now witnessing unprecedented attacks on the right to vote and now more than ever.”